Placental apoptosis in recurrent miscarriage.

Apoptosis is an interactive and dynamic biological process involved in all phases of embryogenesis. We aimed to study the effect of placental apoptosis on recurrent miscarriage (RM). Placental tissue samples were collected from 40 women with RM (study group) and 30 women with sporadic spontaneous abortion (control group). Samples were prepared and stained immunohistochemically with markers for both the apoptotic protein (p53) and anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 antibodies. Our results showed that expression of the apoptotic (p53) protein was significantly increased in the placental tissues of the RM group (p = 0.003). By contrast, the expression of anti-apoptotic (Bcl-2) antibodies was significantly increased in the placental tissues of the control group (p = 0.025). We concluded that placental apoptosis plays a crucial role in pregnancy continuation. However, increased p53 expression in placental tissue in early pregnancy could negatively affect pregnancy continuation.